Thursday, 16 May 2013

Bloomberg suffers breach after customer data surfaces online

Hacker's hands on keyboard
Bloomberg is scrambling to secure its finance service after a leaked transcript exposed customer information.
The Financial Times reported that a list, which has since been taken down, was publicly accessible and contained data such as customer names and financial transaction details. The leaked list was said to be part of a previous project to help gather financial data on transactions.
According to the FT report, prior to its removal the list had been indexed by Google and could have been accessed through a simple search query.
The breach is the second such gaffe to come from Bloomberg in recent days. Earlier this week the company was forced to apologise to users after it was discovered that similar details about customers and transactions had been left open to reporters in Bloomberg's news agency who had access to the company's terminal platform.
Following that disclosure, chief executive Daniel Doctoroff apologised to customers and said that the company would be changing its policies.
"To be clear, the limited customer relationship data previously available to our reporters never included access to our trading, portfolio, monitor, blotter or other related systems or our clients’ messages," the Bloomberg chief said in an open letter.
"Moreover, reporters could not see news stories that clients read, or the securities they viewed. Bloomberg has very strict data security policies in place, in addition to significant and rigorous training, processes and protocols."
Doctoroff later said that the company has contacted some 300 clients to apologise for the error and explain the company's new policies which limit journalist access to publicly available information and create a new compliance officer role

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